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Engage/Elicit

Discovery Question - Can plants survive without water and sunlight?

      
What do plant need to survive?

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In this activity, you job is to figure out if vine plants need water and sunlight to survive.  You will also be exploring what happens to plants if they don't get water and sunlight.  You and your classmates will be setting up an experiment to figure this out.
But before we can begin, let's make a prediction.

maybe a coach can define what  prediction is and how a scientists uses them

Making Predictions
If a plant gets lots of water and lots of sunlight, what do you think will happen to the:

Variables	Hypothesis
Color of Leaves
Number of New Leaves
Strength of Stem
Growth of Vine		I have been been going back and forth for how much support to give students with making observations.  I choose to leave it open ended because of the scaffolding.  But I could envision the following chart as a support|| Variables || Hypothesis || | Color of Leaves | Dark Green    Green      Light Green | | Number of New Leaves | 0 - 1         2- 4        more than 4 | | Strength of Stem | strong       weak          Limp || Growth of Vine | no growth   little growth     lots of growth | | | | |

I have spent an hour or so trying to format these crazy charts - confluence keeps working against me.  It is not worth my time to spend on this formatting anymore.  Call me, I would be more than happy to talk you through it. Urgh!!

If a plant gets lots of water and no sunlight, what do you think will happen to the: |

If a plant gets no water and lots of sunlight, what do you think will happen to the:

If a plant gets no water and no sunlight, what do you think will happen to the:

You just created what scientists call an hypothesis.  You made a prediction on how the plant would be behave if we changed the different conditions.  You actually made four hypotheses. 

it would be nice if  the students could hit a button called hypothesis and then all these statements they made came up as if...then statements.  It would also be nice if these could be saved and recalled, is that possible?

it would be nice if a coach could explain what a hypothesis was in more detail

Materials:

• 4 small potted house plants (preferably vines)
• tape measure/yard stick
• measuring cup/beaker
• 4 light probes
• permenant marker to label plants
• scissors to cut off vines
• access to water
• access to sunlight
• a dark place where no sun comes

Explore 

Let's test your hypotheses with real plants. 

SetUp

1. Find three other people you want to work with.  Your teacher may help you pick your partners.  Your teacher will also provide you with your materials.  
2. Your group has been given four plants.  Each person in your group will have one plant. 
3. Using the permenant marker, label the four plants 1, 2, 3, and 4.  
4. Pick the longest vine on your plant.  Carefully, cut off all the other vines off.  Toss the cut vines in the garbage

.

5. Give your plant a 1/2 cup of water

possibly a coach teaching how to measure water

6. Make your initial observations about your plant. 

There are four plants and four groups looking at four different plants, the initial observation sheet is only written for one.  I don't know the capacity of the technology to know what my options as a designer are.   I am flagging this though that if two kids share a computer, they may need multiple copies of the inital observation section.

     
Plant Number:_____________

Circle which one is true about the stem:
strong          weak       limp
    
Length of vine : ___________________
  

need support on how to make an observation

need support on how to measure the vine

Determining the Conditions: 
At the beginning of the activity, you where asked to make four predictions.  Do you remember what they were?

need to pull up their predictions from the beginning of the activity.  If we don't have a mechanism to pull up their predictions, then at least pull up the four if...then statements to remind them of their predictions.

Let's test out these predictions. Click on your plant below to learn about what to do.

• Plant #1 will get lots of water and lots of sunlight
• Plant #2 will get no water and lots of sunlight
• Plant #3 will get lots of water and no sunlight
• Plant #4 will get no water and no sunlight

  Below is what shows up when the students click on their plant number: If you have plant #1, find a good spot in the room where it will get lots of sunlight.  You will be responsible for giving it a 1/2 cup of water every day. If you have plant #2, find a good spot in the root where it will get lots of sunlight.  After the first initial water, you will not need to water it for the rest of the experiment. If you have plant #3, find a spot in the room that has no sunlight. Some good places to put your plant are in a cabinet or cover it with a box.  You will be responsible for giving it a 1/2 cup of water every day. If you have plant #4, find a spot in the room that has no sunlight. Some good places to put your plant are in a cabinet or cover it with a box. After the first initial water, you will not need to water it for the rest of the experiment.

  Observations:

Every day for the next week:

1. Get your plant from its place in the classroom
2. Make an observation about:
   • color of leaves
   • number of spots on leaves
   • number of small leaves
   • number of big leaves
   • strength of the stem
   • length of the vine
3. Water your plant if you are suppose to water it
4. Put it back in its appropriate place
5. Record your observations in the table below

   It would be really cool if the data table was just for the individual plants across the days and then on the last day the students could click a button and they would get this large data table with everyone in their classes data. Would like to discuss with CC further on how they envision students sharing this data after the experiment is done.

 Carolyn and Meridith's Conversation on how to make this chart work.

At the beginning of the activity, we have plant 1 tester, plant 2 tester etc... (like in Act 2) 

The math graphic growing function is embedded in each of the testers pages.

We will loose the first three columns (plant number, water, sunlight).  this information can be given when outside of the chart.

They will save their charts to a website at concord.  Then they can go through a portal to select other peoples data.  this way they can analyze all different plants.

[what is below does not address this new idea] 

1. Plants	Water	Sunlight	Observations	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7
   #1	1/2 cup of water	yes	color of leaves
   			# of leaves that have spots
   			# of small leaves
   			# of big leaves
   			status of stem
   			length of Vine
   #2	no water	yes	color of leaves
   			# of leaves that have spots
   			# of small leaves
   			# of big leaves
   			status of stem
   			length of vine
   #3	1/2 cup of water	no sun	color of leaves
   			# of leaves that have spots
   			# of small leaves
   			# of big leaves
   			status of stem
   			length of vine
   #4	no water	no sun	color of leaves
   			# of leaves that have spots
   			# of small leaves
   			# of big leaves
   			status of stem
   			length of vine

Explain

1. Which plants had the longest vine?           Plant #1       Plant #2      Plant #3     Plant #4
2. Which plants had the most big leaves?     Plant #1       Plant #2      Plant #3     Plant #4
3. Which plants had the most tiny leaves?    Plant #1       Plant #2      Plant #3     Plant #4
4. Which plants had leaves that changed from dark green color to either green or light green?   Plant #1       Plant #2      Plant #3     Plant #4 
5. Which plants had the most leaves with brown spots?   Plant #1       Plant #2      Plant #3     Plant #4
6. Which plants had weak stems?   Plant #1       Plant #2      Plant #3     Plant #4

Elaborate

1. Take a look at the plants that have the longest vine, most number of big and tiny leaves.  What condition do they all have?

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[further explanation] When plants get sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, they make a substance called sugar.  This sugar is food for the plants.  They use the energy from the sugar for growing longer vines and more leaves.  In the experiment you just did, you noticed that when plants had enough sunlight and water they had a longer vine and more leaves.  You now know, this is because they where making and using sugar.

2. Take a look at the plants with leaves that changed to a light green?  What condition do they all have?

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 3. Take a look at the plants with brown spots, what condition do they all have?

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Extend

You just learned that sunlight is very important for the growth and survival of a plant.  In the experiment, you looked only at lots of sunlight or no sunlight.  Not every plant got the exact amount of sunlight.  As scientists, we can get a more exact amount of sunlight if we used a probe.

1. Get a light probe from your teacher.  Your teacher will instruct you on how to use it.

2. Take your plant back to its place in the classroom. This time use the light probe to measure the amount of sunlight your plant gets.

• place the probe in the plants location at the beginning of each class
• turn on the probe
• at the end of class get the probe
• record the amount of light
• turn the probe off
• repeat plant and probe procedures everyday for five days

3. Collect the measurements from your probe and examine.

Questions:

1. What location had the most light over the five days?
2. Were the plants put in the dark never exposed to light?
3. Was the dark really dark?

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